Florida’s lacrosse coach had a University of Florida shirt in 2007, but little else as she began recruiting players for the Gators’ new program, which wasn’t scheduled to begin play for nearly three years. No facility. No stadium. No equipment. Just a promise that the Gators would eventually compete for a national championship.

"We had nothing to show them," O’Leary remembered. "They would come on their recruiting visits and we had no stadium, we had no tradition, we had nothing to show them.